Alexander Cach

Review of Second Nature Wilderness Progr...

Through first hand experience I would warn parents...

Through first hand experience I would warn parents from sending their children here. I spent fourth months at the program and after being released from it I have felt nothing but mistrust and hatred towards my parents, though I do not blame them for sending me to the program they thought they were doing the right thing. The program promotes conformity to the system which does not create real results, I have been in contact with most of the other students that I spent time with at second nature, and I have yet to find one of over twenty that has no relapsed or though the program was a waste of time and damaging, as for me relationships with my family have become distant and fake. I find that not single day goes by where I do not think of second nature wilderness program. The staff were highly mixed in attitudes toward the attendees of the program, some I quite liked and would like to have a friendship with and others were there as work and saw the students as nothing than that. In the program if you are not with it and confirming your life is made harder every day by staff with consequences which is a word that used heavily, even at the mention of punishment the staff be on you like hyenas to a carcass and dispute it with heavy intensity.
The therapists are only available once a week in the field and you are given a single hour with them and that is it for the week. I found that the therapy was rushed and never made real strides towards a solid answer or focus on the therapy you required.
As far as contact with parents goes there is little to none. You are allowed one letter a week and will receive one letter a week, in that letter you are expected to family counseling. Though counseling through letters in highly in effective and is easily squandered. In my time there I only was able to do phone calls in the last month I was there. In total I got four phone calls of family therapy where the therapist and parents are in a group call with you. These were more focused but 4 thirty minute real family therapy sessions for the whole stay is heinous idea and will to no real results.
Another problem I would to address is that of the child transporters that some parents used lovingly referred to as goons. Goons are emotionally damaging for students of the program. They are kidnappers that your parents pay to take you away early in the morning or late at night and drop you in the mountains/desert. The fact that this even legal within the country is sickening.
In the end I would warn any parent looking at the possibility of wilderness as a viable option for there child to seek better methods. This is not a drug rehab center or a fruitful method of counseling it is a money making corporation that is pushed by educational consultants as a viable option for any form of counseling.